What’s in a name? Politics, if you ask proud new father Mark Ciptak of Elizabethton, Tenn.

Few things can make us feel so helpless and despondent as drought.

This summer, I’ve appreciated the blessings of refrigerated air:
Cold glacial chunks of pink watermelon on a muggy afternoon. A jar of ice-cube-clinking lemonade forming beads and a wet ring on the counter, and which you hold to your hot face before swigging. The lovely, soul-restoring bliss of chilled chocolate milk, falling through the floors of your innards like a rich cold river, bringing old memories and hopes to life.
Then, there’s my car. I have no AC because I rarely used it in my last car, and don’t drive many long stints on the sun-beaten interstate.